One of the reasons that makes witnessing to churchgoers both difficult and unpleasant is because they have not yet heard from the Lord in a revelatory way. Most of religious believe that if your argument is not bible based, then it is not worth listening to. So, a way to get through to them is using the scriptures in red. In other words, “What did the Lord Jesus say?” Use the Lord’s own words to reveal the truth to them.

The Lord Jesus presented a group of kingdom of heaven parables, most of which He did not explain, but he left some clues. One of the clues as depicted in Matthew 13, is the birds. Therefore, when you’re keeping things very general, your focus is to rely on what the Lord said, what the Lord shared. And you ask your religious churchgoer,” what do they think that parable means?” Listen to what…

Just because a person is born again does not make them “deception proof.”

Pam Sheppard, Author and Pastor

The Lord would not have warned His disciples to “take heed and be not deceived” if there was no danger that they could be deceived. It does not matter how many things you are or were deceived about. For 25 years, I was deceived about a few things in comparison to what other churchgoers were deceived about. Yet the Holy Spirit did not release me from the deception until He was ready to. He simply stepped in when He chose the time to be right and started unravelling things. Why? Because I began to both doubt and question religious teachings and practices.

What I continue to remain cautious about is this. Just because I am undeceived NOW, does not mean that it is impossible for me to be deceived again. For me to think otherwise would be both pride and arrogance and I do not want God to resist me.

So what is deception?

Deception has to do with thoughts in the mind. Simply put, we believe a lie or a half truth. The worst of it is the assumptions. or if you start off with even one little wrong assumption, everything else falls like dominos.
Recently , I watched how a person can start out with truth and how the enemy can use the very truth they have received and lead them into a lie. What happens is that the enemy takes advantage of our misconception of truth. He also uses the weaknesses of our personalities to lead us into believing what suits us best.

This realization has humbled me quite a bit. I believe that once we are given truth, we have to seek God in prayer to help us not to misunderstand truth, for our conception of truth may cause us to be deceived.

So my question is “how do we make ourselves fool-proofed to deception?”

I think we can all answer this from experience. just examined how we got deceived, what was it about us that caused us to be open to the deception, and how did we come out of it?

I was deceived because of my lack of knowledge of how the enemy works and how God works. I also had no knowledge of church history. My assumptions were off. For, example, I thought everything supernatural was from God. I also looked to mega preachers for answers, ignorant of the fact that those who I sought for answers were deceived themselves.

I did not become undeceived until I began to doubt and question religious beliefs and practices. People think that doubting is like wavering. Wavering is being tossed to and fro, filled with confusion. Doubting on the other hand is what is necessary to reach the truth. In other words, it’s our capacity to doubt and question that makes us free.

When I was in the institutional church, I did not doubt. I was very sure of key things that were wrong. For example, I never doubted slain in the spirit. Without doubt, then you will make assumptions. So I assumed that slain in the spirit was a good thing and I lusted after it. Once I got it, then doubt set in.

Doubt caused me to ask questions. For example, I asked myself while a pastor, ‘Why is it that the people who are constantly slain in the spirit around me cannot stand solid in Christ?” was my first bit of doubting. In short, I ASKED MYSELF AN IMPORTANT QUESTION. My doubt began because they were constantly falling in their spiritual walk. So this situation caused me to begin to doubt the slain in the spirit practice. Also “War on the Saints” Caused me to start doubting. IT WAS A GOOD THING.

Once I began to doubt and question, the Holy Spirit began to pour rivers of revelation upon me about many things. As He undeceived me, I began to write..

The result is 7 published books.

To share in my progressive unveiling from deception to truth, click here

A very common error of the people of God and Satan’s people , is that the devil can only be in one place at a time. Let me make it clear. Satan cannot be in America, Africa, England and China, all at once. Actually, here are only a few people in the bible who met Satan face to face: Eve, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Peter, Ananias, and perhaps Paul and possibly, Judas. As an aside, Judas was never at any time a believer, not a child of God, EVER. So he probably met Satan face to face.

You may think that you have met Satan, but you are not important enough for him to contact you personally. Satan likes to give us the impression that he is “everywhere’. The truth is that he knows us because of his messengers–fallen angels and demons— who ARE everywhere. These are the principalities and powers…

It was almost four decades ago when I first witnessed the “slain in the spirit” phenomena in 1979. It has become a common manifestation for decades, first manifested publicly at least a century ago. So ministers have continued to lay hands on countless millions of unsuspecting, naïve believers in order that they might receive what is colloquially known as “an impartation.”

When the people began to be tormented in one way or the other, most of them sought help from deliverance ministries, yet their condition worsened. In fact, 75% of my own Christian client contacts had been hearing voices when they telephoned me for help—all of them were active and faithful church members. Some of them I could help, some of them, I could not, for one reason or another.

One thing that all of these strange happenings have in common is the altered state of consciousness, better known as “the trance.” With that ONE common denominator,

When posting on facebook on this hot topic about 6 years ago, I recall that the responses were clearly impulsive, sudden argumentative reactions of tongue talkers taken aback and even outraged by my position on this subject. It was as if the commentators did not even give themselves time to think and meditate on my post before responding. I was shocked. Readers actually sat down in the early morning hours —took time away from their busy schedules— to post quite a few rather lengthy rebuttals, as if it was a major sin to even question tongue speaking. Thee commentators seemed irrational in their protest, as if themselves, under the influence of evil spirits.

Tongues is certainly a volatile issue, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, it seems that I may have “touched on something” here. So I wonder, “why are the demons so upset, simply because I am obeying the spirit by “trying everything spiritual, including “tongues”?” I have personally confronted the religious demon on several occasions. I have even cast out various demons with much success. I have written several books that deal with unveiling Satan’s wiles and strategies, so my work and agenda is not new to the enemy. In fact, it has been proven to me that demons can recall every sentence on each page of all 8 of my books–a feat that is impossible even for me, the author of them. I have to search the table of contents to find what I am looking for.

Perhaps I did not get attacked for writing books, because tongues, though mentioned, is not the primary emphasis of the book. As I reviewed several commentaries, it appears that when I indicated that I had reservations about tongues for two decades, perhaps I did not make myself clear. You need to know that I did not originally question the tongues that others spoke, but only my own “tongue.” Nor did I mean that I originally believed that tongues was from the devil.

In truth, I once loved to speak in tongues. It certainly did I sooth my flesh. In that regard, speaking in tongues is self edifying and self gratifying. I am a conversationalist—a preacher and a teacher of the word of God as well— so I tend to be articulate.. Even so, in tongues, I can utter non-stop for hours. You need to be aware that chanting, transcendental meditation and yoga have the same pleasant and even ecstatic effects upon the flesh.

Laboratory research has proven that tongues and other forms of mental passivity give the frontal lobe of the brain a real rest. This is because the mind is literally unfruitful when tongues is uttered, even more unfruitful than the state of sleep. Our minds work pretty well during sleep, as evidenced by the quality of our dream life. However, when I speak in tongues, all thinking actually stops until I cease from speaking. Even if I were to try to babble out something, my mind would be thinking of the next babbling sound to utter.

However, not so with tongues. All thought comes to an end as the utterances roll off of the tongue like water. Not at all concerned until recently about the legitimacy of the overall tongues movement in our time, my original concern was totally personal. Simply put, I questioned whether or not I myself had received tongues in the correct spiritual manner.

To explain further, I wondered why tongues did not “come upon me” as I witnessed the speaking in tongues of others and along the same lines, I wondered why I seemed to have so much control over my own utterances. I spoke tongues regularly, but in my own personal life, I never attributed my spiritual growth to it. Actually, I personally found effects upon my flesh. Rather, correction and chastisement of fires of refinement as opposed no spiritual benefit to it other than its soothing I have grown in Christ by submitting myself to the Holy Ghost, groomed and strengthened in the to uttering by the fires of a prayer language.

A particular incident is noteworthy. The year was 1985. I was travelling on a narrow, country road in upstate New York on a very cold, bright and sunny winter morning. Since it was bitter cold, I had the heat blasting— but on top of that, the sun was shining directly on me through the car windows, in all of its brightness. I was very warm but not sweating. Then there was the sound of the tires on the road that made a repetitive sound every few seconds–kerplunk, kerplunk, kerplunk.

As a former student and practitioner of relaxation therapy, aka hypnosis, I was trained to impart the imagination and visualization of heat accompanied by a monotonous tone of a hypnotic voice as mesmerizing tools to “put a person under.” In short, I became hypnotized by the heat and the repetitive sounds of the tires on the road. While in an altered state of consciousness, I heard a hypnotic voice repeat, “follow that car.” I also felt a push forward, as though attempting to take action and follow the car that came from behind and passed me . What transpired is that an invisible being had compelled me to cross the solid line and kill myself while I was in a trance.I was about to obey that voice when my hands gripped so tight on the steering wheel that I couldn’t move them if I wanted to. My hands actually froze—locked tightly so that all I could do was drive straight ahead. My eyes were opened the entire time and I saw it all, yet I was hypnotized.

Suddenly, as I awoke out of the trance, a huge truck whizzed right by me in the opposite lane. I realized then, that if I had followed the car, I would not have been alive today to write about this. I would have crashed head on into that truck. There were about 5 cars behind the truck as well. Others would have certainly died that day. When I got home, I spoke to a close “significant other” who rather casually remarked, “as I was sitting at my desk today, I saw a vision of you. You were riding in a car and the sun was shining very brightly on you. I didn’t know what was going on so I just “prayed in tongues.”

Consequently, for 20 years, this incident was my main proof that tongues was a “prayer language.” I found a supportive scripture taken “out of context” in Romans 8:26 as my so-called “confirmation”, namely, that we know not what to pray for as we ought and that the Holy Ghost prays the perfect will of God for us. Yet I ignored the rest of that scripture, namely, that the Holy Ghost does this with groanings, and not with tongues. The scripture clearly states that the groanings “ARE NOT UTTERED.” Speaking in tongues is AN UTTERANCE, so I believe we are in error when we stretch Romans 8:26 in order to confirm that tongues is a “prayer language.”.

So that you know, the enemy is famous in the use of what Christians call “confirmation,”—a subject of a future article. . Within my own congregation, I witnessed how tongues spontaneously came upon others and how “ecstatic” the experience was for them. In my case, it was neither spontaneous nor ecstatic, and I wondered if “it should be.” On the contrary, when I spoke in tongues, it was rather “conversational, and “though it felt good, I rarely became ecstatic or emotional. I also noted that among the tongue talkers within the congregation that I pastored, I could find no fruits of the spirit. In fact, some church members were seriously demonized, others suffered from mental illness. In short, every Christian drug addict among us were prolific in the speaking in tongues.

I perceived a problem with that.

Since I began to take a serious look at tongues in 2007, I decided to temporarily stop speaking in tongues until I was assured. Strangely enough, although I have successfully restrained myself from speaking in it for 10 years, there are rare occasions when I literally have to strengthen my will power against blurting out tongues at isolated times during a day. On occasion, I could feel it in me, as a slightly compulsive and impulsive desire to literally “cut loose” with it.

This “phenomena” had not occurred since I first spoke in tongues in 1983, as I always uttered by the desire of my own will. Actually I was normally rather neutral about it. Now that I have both questioned it and refused to utter, sometimes I momentarily experience a strong urge to speak in tongues, which I fight. This is NOT a comfortable feeling. I can hear you tongue talkers now, screaming at me through the airways, “you are grieving and quenching the Holy Ghost, Pam. Give in to your compulsion and “let it roll!!!” Well, I vowed that until I know without a shadow of a doubt that the tongues that I speak is of God, I will not speak in tongues. Ten years have passed. The compulsion pressured me less, yet I suspect it is not fully extinguished. Even so, I do not yield to it. For when the compulsion comes, all that bursts through my mouth is about 10 seconds of “Ba,ba, ba, ba,ba” By the way, I did some research and discovered that Satan’s followers affectionately call him “Ba Ba” in a similar way that we call our natural father’s “Daddy.” in my memory, every tongue talker that I have heard will say “Ba Ba!!!!!”

Another problem that caused me to “raise my eyebrow” is that the majority of people in the church I once pastored and those I met from other churches who spoke in tongues bore no spiritual fruit of holiness. I relate to the words of James where he questioned, “how can bitter and sweet waters come out of the same cistern?” For example, in my own congregation as well as those known to me as members of word of faith and pentecostal churches, I simply could not understand how people who were obviously hypocritical, legalistic and even mean-spirited could be so prolific in a language inspired by “the Holy Ghost.” Isn’t the Holy Ghost grieved and quenched by sin?

Good question. Then too, if a person does not walk in love, Paul explains that tongues are useless. (1Corin 13) Singling out no person other than myself, as a single Christian woman, fornication remained a stronghold for me as a babe in Christ. Like the Corinthians, I also ignorantly carried over practices from “the dumb idols” of occultism for quite a few years, so when Paul warned the Corinthians to flee fornication, he spoke to me also. Yet, even at the weakest and most compromised stage of my own spiritual walk, I consistently remained fluent in tongues.

So, until 2007, I had no suspicion that tongues could be “of the devil.” Even so, I would not be the first to share such a supposition. Tongue talkers have been accused of “having a demon” by countless professing Christians and non-Christian. So what is going on “today?” In terms of “what is going on in my life today, this week, I cast out 8 Hindu deities from one former yoga practitioner who is a Christian: Shiva, Hakini, Savashiva, Isha, Vahni, Vishnu, Rakini and Brahma in the name and by the authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Practically each of these demons came out ranting at me using its captive to speak in tongues—a very similar sound to the tongues that I have heard uttered among those who profess to be speaking “a prayer language.”

Not that I believe this, but for the sake of argument from a “devil’s advocate” position, suppose there is a true tongue spoken and interpreted today and I am simply one of millions who received tongues in the wrong way. I have had a lot in common with the Corinthians for I too unknowingly worshipped at the altar of pagan gods, aka demons. Since the Corinthians were saved, Paul did not suggest that demons be cast out of them but only that they “interpret.” If no interpretation, then no speaking. This is simple. It has been 10 years of no tongue utterance on my behalf and I have had no demons cast from me. The Apostle Paul suggested that the person who speaks in tongues should also seek to interpret. I sought to interpret for 25 years and my prayer was never answered. . Therefore, I heed Paul’s counsel and I simply will not speak in tongues without an interpreter. Actually, I will never again speak in tongues because I suspect that tongues spoken in the last century are demonic.

Tongues and Mental Health

I belong to a very small, rather elite group of professional therapists who used counseling to set people free from demons. One of those people was Kurt Koch from Germany. I was reading his book published in 1973 where he presented a discussion, comparing real mental illness to being demonized. Tongues entered into the discussion as a sign of possession!

There is a lot to learn from Koch. Sure, he was an “I accept Jesus” person, yet he had a lot of cases and so his findings are important. What gets me is the connection he makes to tongues as a sign of being demonized. Here are the words of Koch:

The greatest difference, however, between psychosis (mental illness) and occult subjection is the ability of a possessed person to speak in a foreign language while in a state of trance. This is not to be confused with genuine glossolalia, a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is rather a demonic counterpart to speaking in tongues. I know of both witch doctors and spiritistic mediums who are able to speak in foreign languages while in ecstasies or in a trance. I can give you an example of this from Australia. A missionary friend of mine with whom I once worked, told me of an incident he knew about where six tribal witch doctors, following a long ceremonious procedure, finally began to speak in foreign languages with voices not their own. If I had the time I could go on to describe further characteristic differences between psychoses and possession. The conflict one meets with possessed people involve realms which transcend rational thought and understanding.

Finally, I personally believe that tongues have ceased. The reason I believe that all tongues spoken today is a counterfeit is based on simple logic and basic commonsense. I found that as I conducted research for the book “the fake Jesus,” tongues actually DID cease as Paul told the Corinthians that they would. History reveals that tongues ceased for 19 centuries. Think about it. No Christian needed or ever heard of “a prayer language” for 1900 years!!!!!.

“God Himself brought forth many languages to hinder the building of the tower of Babel. In Genesis 11, we read that because of the people’s rebellion, God confused the language of all the earth so that the people would not be able to understand each other’s speech, How ironic and counter-rebellious on the part of Maitreya. As Satan’s representative of endtimes, Maitreya plans to do just the opposite in Mystery Babylon, which includes the organized church. Maitreya’s goal is to cause all who speak in different tongues to hear him in ONE tongue. This is a complete reversal of God’s actions to hinder the tower of Babel. This is blasphemy to the nth degree. Anyone who does not close the door to self-induced passivity is at risk of becoming reprobate.”

Do you feel like you need healing of mind, body and soul? Do you have a physical ailment that you would like the Lord to heal? Are you troubled by some spiritual things happening with you that you feel like no one else around you understands? Are you damaged by the church or by religion? Do you need to be delivered from some challenging situations in your life? Do you need to talk to someone about some spiritual struggles you are having? Are you seeking a private space, without judgment, to share about your challenges and receive help?

Well, we are HERE. We are RESCUE FELLOWSHIP, an online Christian group for folks who require a personal touch—those who are hungry and thirsty for the return of the Lord. Our mission is to prepare you for His return.

Pam Sheppard, Senior Pastor of RESCUE
Are you sensing that the end of this age is near? Do you feel led to search DEEPER for truth? If so, RESCUE just might be the avenue for you. We have a great deal of blogs, videos, links, and books for you to browse through, so stop by and check us out.

If you are so inclined to move forward, we are only a phone call or an email away.

TO ENTER THE PASTORAL COUNSELING/COACHING COMPONENT, call to schedule an appointment for a telephone session at 888-818-1117. You can also send an email to rescueonfb@icloud.com
Here are some links to books and websites that you may find helpful to you as well:The Church of the End-Time Zombies:
Paperback, www.lulu.com/content/16262055
Ebook, www.lulu.com/content/16464312

Because the spirit and the soul are not separate but tightly knitted or braided around each other as are the ligaments, marrow and jonts in our legs, it is difficult to discern the difference between the two. The soul is easiest to recognize because the concerns and needs of “self” are generally apparent. We recognize the “body” side of the soul because we can see the results through the activity of the natural frame. We can see selfishness, ambition, competition, and jealousy because the body, through material and natural things, will engage in scenarios that expose self striving.

However, where we fall short is in our ability to discern the soul from the spirit, which is also “flesh.” I am considering a gospel account of the words of the Lord when a funeral procession went by. He turned to his disciples and said, “let the dead bury the dead.” How can the dead bury the dead? What Jesus was actually saying is “let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead.” Meaning: those who are alive in both the body and the soul have a dead spirit. A dead spirit is one that is separated, alienated, and without God in the world. That is a dead spirit. It doesn’t mean that there is no awareness or activity in the spirit.

The spirit of the lost is very much alive in the kingdom of darkness, but he or she is alienated from the kingdom of heaven. It makes itself known through various nightmares and irrational fears. When it is active, man’s dead spirit is open to the hellish dark world of spirits ruled over by the Prince of darkness. When it is both active AND powerful, the spirit is capable of a variety of supernatural feats including but not limited to clairvoyance, clairaudience and astral travel or out of body experiences.

When a lost or alienated person “accepts Jesus” as Lord and Savior, it can’t be the spirit who does so because the spirit of that person is dead, alienated, and walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in those who are disobedient by the lust of their flesh. In such a condition, the soul has to take over. In the lost, the soul fulfills the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and the lost person has the nature of self consciousness.

So since a dead spirit cannot “accept God,” the soul takes over in its parts: mind, emotions and volition or will and says, “I accept Jesus as Lord and Savior” and begins a religious ritual that imitates intimacy and relationship. The working of the enemy through the mind or ideas of man quenches the work of the Holy Ghost to quicken that person’s spirit. For the powers of darkness are keenly clever in working alongside of and simulating the born again experience.

When a person is REALLY born again, the soul takes a back seat. The Holy Ghost “quickens” the spirit through repentance. As defined by Paul to the Ephesians, to quicken means to be made alive. As Jesus Christ was raised from the dead physically or bodily, to be born again is to be raised from the dead spiritually. In other words, a dead spirit has been raised to becoming a vessel for the Holy Ghost. Since the spirit does not have a will, volition is a choice or decision made by the soul. What the spirit has is intuition. Paul revealed that the reason the spirit is raised from the dead is because “God is rich in mercy.” So the resurrection of the spirit begins in the intuition and then translated into understanding by the soul.

When the soul “accepts Jesus,” the spirit remains dead but with great acting skills, the soul can religiously imitate the things of God. The fallen spirit of man, alienated and separated from God is sunk down into the soul so that the soul manifests as intellect or sensuality, often in both. In such cases, the soul reigns over both the spirit and the body. The way that the new life reaches the spirit is shown in the Lord’s own words: You must be born again. The Holy Ghost “breathes” where ever He chooses. This is not the decision of man but the will of God.

The believer who has been raised from the dead in the spirit to newness of like is born of the Spirit or “born again.” The Holy Ghost, who takes up a dwelling place in the reborn spirit, has given the believer a revelation of the Cross and the Lord’s resurrection. This revelation is first received in the spirit. As James indicates in his letter, the wisdom that is from above—from the Holy Spirit—is pure, peaceable, gentle, merciful—without any element of the life of the soul—opinions, self views, strife-jealousy. So when a person is born again, the spirit imparts understanding to the soul through the mind, will and the emotions.

What is happening among those who claim that “they accepted Jesus,” is that they have done so through the soul and therefore, their spirits have remained dead. The intellect of one whose spirit is dead is decidedly fallible and becomes the most dangerous of the soul’s gifts because God seekers use their minds to understand spiritual truths. The scriptures reveal that the soulish man cannot receive the things of the Spirit, because they can only be spiritually discerned.

According to the late great Jessie Penn Lewis, “It is the soulish element in teachers and professors of holiness, which is often the cause of separation and disunion. There may be, it is true, love in the heart to those who ‘differ,’ but the ‘differences’ divide nevertheless, because the demoniacal powers, able to work upon the soulish element in the believer, always emphasize or exaggerate the difference in “views of truth,” instead of magnifying the points of union, and even drive eager believers to ‘fight’ for their view of ‘truth,‘ under the name of ‘witnessing for God.” It is also the soulish element in Christians which insists upon the minute correspondence of others its ‘views of truth,’ and ‘tithe mint and anise and cumin’, in words whilst leaving ‘undone the weightier matters of the law’—which in the gospel dispensation of the Spirit between believers as the condition of their growth into ‘unity of the faith. ‘In brief, the soul-life, influenced by evil supernatural powers, is the main cause of divisions and separation among the professing, and even the true children of God.”

For this reason as pointed out by Sis. Jessie, the churches are filled with nominal worshippers of Christ, who show no marks of a true Christian life within them. In a nutshell, influences that bypass the spirit and only reach the soul may prepare the way by bringing the seeker within the reach of the truth which is read from the scriptures. Outer strivings may make for a kind self righteousness that has a value and place in the world. However, by virtue of these outer trappings, such seekers will be fooled into believing that the strivings of the soul is evidence that he or she is born again. Not so. Since God views self righteous as filthy rags, the spirits of such seekers is untouched. Dead. Alienated. Without God.

Those whose souls imitate salvation are diversified. Dynamic personalities sway and move the emotions of others. Their fruit—like TD Jakes for example—is to move the emotions of the soul. The problem is that the faith of the hearers stands in the influence or wisdom of people like TD, and not in the power of God. Intellectuals uses schemes to reach men and bring them to God, some preaching hell and damnation to frighten people to God, others using heaven, prosperity, gospelfests, social fellowship, networking etc.

The outcome is that people are attracted to the fake Jesus, and not of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. What happens is a dangerous thing, so dangerous, that I will have to address it in more detail Part III. Suffice it to say for now, that people who are deceived into believing that they got born again, STILL have a dead spirit. When dead, the spirit is susceptible to the evil side of the spirit world where psychic power is mistaken for the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Consequently, unsaved people are speaking in tongues, laying hands on others, imparting demons into vulnerable people. Also, when people with dead spirits pray to the Father in the name of His Son, the one who answers their prayers is the imposter, the Fake Jesus.

Can a person whose spirit has been quickened STILL allow his or her soul to dominate? Most decidedly YES. These are those who have a sensual relationship with Jesus. When they speak of “being in His presence,” they are not satisfied unless they can feel the presence of God continually upon their flesh, and almost bi-polar in the spirit, they experience loads of ups and downs akin to spiritual mood swings. They need to be taught how to walk by faith and not by sight or feeling. Although the Holy Spirit dwells in their spirits, they often allow the soul to predominate because they do not understand the spirit life and the actions of the human spirit in co-action with God.

To learn more about rescue ministry call 1-888-818-1117.

For even more information you can get a copy of Pastor Pam’s books CLICK HERE.